Source: John Mauldin. Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert, is also editor of the free Thoughts From the Frontline that goes to over 1 million readers each week. For more information on John or his FREE weekly economic letter go to: http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/learnmore

What do people do when they do not have access to Mobile banking and payment solutions. Surely if a major need exist they consumers must utilise alternatives. The fact of the matter is that they do, often with major risks and costs associated with the alternatives.

The most often used alternative is the use of Premium SMS's. This is still by far the most often used mechanism to pay for content in the mobile world. Few consumers realise this, but the cost of performing a transaction with premium SMS's are as high as 50%. This means that half the price of the goods (content in this case) is paid in order to perform the transaction. If this type of payment were utilised in the purchase of lets say groceries, goods would cost twice as much as they do now.

Another example is payments being charged to your phone bill for broadband usage for instance.

The use airtime as currency is gaining momentum especially where money must be sent over a distance. This means of payment is hugely expensive and also unsafe. This mechanisms does not provide for any consumer protection, yet is being used daily to solve problems that consumers in the lower income bracket are confronted with. In some instance, I have even seen airtime being used as hedging against currency fluctuations. This practice is not only technical illegal, but also inherently dangerous for participants in such schemes.

All of the above is indicative for the need for cost effective, secure, easy to use payment solutions available on mobile phones.

It seems that the mobile phone for seniors market has become active in the last few weeks. After the Life Phone was recently announced, AT&T launched a handset that is suitable for senior mobile phone users. Let me introduce the Pantech Breeze from AT&T.

There have been a few updates on when AT&T will launch thePantech Breeze After a few months of waiting, the carrier has finally released the device and has marketed it as a handset suited for seniors. Let us examine the elements that make this mobile device a good cell phone for the elderly.

The Pantech Breeze is an uncomplicated or basic mobile phone. It has a clean and uncluttered design, simplified menus, over sized display, large keypad and quick-call keys. Clearly, its a useful device for people who want an easy way to stay in touch with friends, loved ones and caregivers. I don't think I need to explain why a simple or basic phone is best for seniors.

AT&T's Pantech Breeze is also part of the carriers "Universal Design" approach. This approach the practice of designing products and applications that are usable by the most customers possible. This means that application developers and handset manufacturers were encouraged to consider the needs of seniors or customers who have disabilities when creating products and services. The Pantech Breeze is an example of a device design with this approach.

Here's a statement from an AT&T representative that would further explain the Universal Design concept that was used in the making of the Pantech Breeze:

"Universal Design helps define important design criteria to meet the wants and needs of as many of our customers as possible. The Pantech Breeze is a result of our efforts to meet these criteria and offer a great-looking phone that's a breeze to use for everyone — from tweens to great-grandparents."

These are the fruits of the Universal Design being applied to the creation of the Pantech Breeze.

Simplified Menu : senior users can easily navigate the phone's features with the simplified "breeze menu," which prioritizes the features that customers want to access most.

1-2-3 Quick-Call Keys : The Breeze has 3 preprogrammable quick-call buttons that are located below the screen. By selecting one of the three quick-call contacts and pressing the send button can easily tart a call.

Easy-to-Use Buttons - When users press the Pantech Breeze's oversized buttons, the buttons respond with a tactile click. The amount of time the keys remain illuminated after use is extended tp benefit seniors with weak eyesight.

Large Font - The menu screens on the device use a highly visible large font for greater visibility. The font of SMS messages is also enlarged to aid weak eyes.

Clear and Loud Speakerphone - the design of the Breeze takes seniors with poor hearing into consideration by offering a large, dedicated button starts and stops speakerphone use.

Audible Keys - mistake-free dialing for those with limited sight is also offered by the Breeze. this is possible through the option to have audio accompany numeric keystrokes.

I guess it should be clear by now that the Pantech Breeze is a mobile phone for seniors. It has the attributes that are design to make communication by mobile phone a breeze for seniors.

It seems that the mobile phone for seniors market has become active in the last few weeks. After the Life Phone was recently announced, AT&T launched a handset that is suitable for senior mobile phone users. Let me introduce the Pantech Breeze from AT&T.

There have been a few updates on when AT&T will launch thePantech Breeze After a few months of waiting, the carrier has finally released the device and has marketed it as a handset suited for seniors. Let us examine the elements that make this mobile device a good cell phone for the elderly.

The Pantech Breeze is an uncomplicated or basic mobile phone. It has a clean and uncluttered design, simplified menus, over sized display, large keypad and quick-call keys. Clearly, its a useful device for people who want an easy way to stay in touch with friends, loved ones and caregivers. I don't think I need to explain why a simple or basic phone is best for seniors.

AT&T's Pantech Breeze is also part of the carriers "Universal Design" approach. This approach the practice of designing products and applications that are usable by the most customers possible. This means that application developers and handset manufacturers were encouraged to consider the needs of seniors or customers who have disabilities when creating products and services. The Pantech Breeze is an example of a device design with this approach.

Here's a statement from an AT&T representative that would further explain the Universal Design concept that was used in the making of the Pantech Breeze:

"Universal Design helps define important design criteria to meet the wants and needs of as many of our customers as possible. The Pantech Breeze is a result of our efforts to meet these criteria and offer a great-looking phone that's a breeze to use for everyone — from tweens to great-grandparents."

These are the fruits of the Universal Design being applied to the creation of the Pantech Breeze.

Simplified Menu : senior users can easily navigate the phone's features with the simplified "breeze menu," which prioritizes the features that customers want to access most.

1-2-3 Quick-Call Keys : The Breeze has 3 preprogrammable quick-call buttons that are located below the screen. By selecting one of the three quick-call contacts and pressing the send button can easily tart a call.

Easy-to-Use Buttons - When users press the Pantech Breeze's oversized buttons, the buttons respond with a tactile click. The amount of time the keys remain illuminated after use is extended tp benefit seniors with weak eyesight.

Large Font - The menu screens on the device use a highly visible large font for greater visibility. The font of SMS messages is also enlarged to aid weak eyes.

Clear and Loud Speakerphone - the design of the Breeze takes seniors with poor hearing into consideration by offering a large, dedicated button starts and stops speakerphone use.

Audible Keys - mistake-free dialing for those with limited sight is also offered by the Breeze. this is possible through the option to have audio accompany numeric keystrokes.

I guess it should be clear by now that the Pantech Breeze is a mobile phone for seniors. It has the attributes that are design to make communication by mobile phone a breeze for seniors.

I am sure that readers of this blog know that I am the founder of leading mobile banking solutions company: Fundamo (www.fundamo.com). But as I mention in the disclaimer of this blog, I write about mobile banking in general and not specifically about Fundamo. Although my experience in deploying mobile banking solutions is with my company, I am frequently exposed to other very exciting initiatives in this space. Growth in the mobile banking industry is a function of more professionals, more solutions and most important more success stories.

For people that follow the industry, I am sure most would agree that solutions and professionals from South Africa are playing important roles in moving the industry forward. The reason for this is not clear to me, but a possible topic for a future blog. All (most) banks in South Africa have launched mobile banking offerings (some on their own, or some deploying packaged solutions). The results of these deployments are often quoted as examples of successful deployments. The most notable success-story here is the results achieved by First National Bank (FNB). One of the mobile operators (MTN) launched a ground-breaking solutions with many world firsts.

What I find most interesting is the number of smaller initiatives. Some that have been around for a relative long time, some dubious in their proposed solutions, but nevertheless even in the entrepreneurial space, South Africa boast numerous initiatives. I think that this is another indication of the soundness of our mobile banking industry. Some of these initiatives are listed below:

Wizzit (www.wizzit.co.za) is probably the best-known deployment with exposure in CNN and with the CEO (Brian Richardson) speaking on many platforms. Their distribution strategy and exciting brand serve as an inspiration to many. Then the claims of Cobus Potgieter with his Mopay (www.mopay.co.za) initiative raises doubt in many industry players, but still he soldiers on. WiWallet (www.wiwallet.co.za), and VMT (www.virtualmobiletech.com) are two new kids on the block with exciting and innovative offerings. The two independents Paym8 (www.paym8.co.za) (out of the Radiospoor stable) and Simplus (www.simplus.co.za)(out of the Cointel stable) have been around for some time now. I am not sure if the inventors of First Wireless from the Paarl have run out of steam, but their website is still up (www.1stwireless.co.za). Then the of course, the experienced guys at Mobus (www.mobux.net), with the Pretoria team from Swap Mobile (www.swapmobile.co.za) not to be forgotten. I have probably left out some guys, but you know what, I would love to hear from you.

Here's another phone that has been explicitly targeted towards seniors. This handset could be the Jitterbug's biggest rival. Here is the "Life Phone" from Emporia.

The Life Phone is designed for seniors so you can expect it to lose all the flashy features found on most mobile phones today. This mobile phone for seniors is a back-to-basics handset that should prove simpler to use for the technologically challenged senior citizens.

However, some expert say that it would be a good phone for any age. The Life Phone is perfect for those who do not want all the high tech specifications. Personally, I think that the younger generations would prefer other devices. For them it's all about flashy design and features. Anyway, let's get back to the Life Phone.

The main feature for this cell phone for seniors is a built-in, large red emergency button designed for use in emergencies. This button is locted on the back of the Life Phone and can be programmed to call a designated number and send off a pre-written text message in any emergency.

The Life Phone also offers other attributes that makes it a suitable mobile phone for seniors. For instance, the handset has a large screen and larger buttons. The large screen makes it easier for seniors with weak eyes to see information on the screen. As I have often mentioned in this blog, large keys are best for the elderly because pressing them are easier. Emporia's mobile phone for seniors also offer a louder than normal speaker for those who have impaired hearing.

Here are the other features of the Life Phone:

2.7 inch (6.8cm) mono-colour screen

Dualband

Five emergency numbers can be stored

Very loud

Very strong vibration mode

You can also watch this Life Phone video to get a better idea of this handset for seniors. Tune in to this blog for more cell phones for seniors and other services for oldies.

Here's another phone that has been explicitly targeted towards seniors. This handset could be the Jitterbug's biggest rival. Here is the "Life Phone" from Emporia.

The Life Phone is designed for seniors so you can expect it to lose all the flashy features found on most mobile phones today. This mobile phone for seniors is a back-to-basics handset that should prove simpler to use for the technologically challenged senior citizens.

However, some expert say that it would be a good phone for any age. The Life Phone is perfect for those who do not want all the high tech specifications. Personally, I think that the younger generations would prefer other devices. For them it's all about flashy design and features. Anyway, let's get back to the Life Phone.

The main feature for this cell phone for seniors is a built-in, large red emergency button designed for use in emergencies. This button is locted on the back of the Life Phone and can be programmed to call a designated number and send off a pre-written text message in any emergency.

The Life Phone also offers other attributes that makes it a suitable mobile phone for seniors. For instance, the handset has a large screen and larger buttons. The large screen makes it easier for seniors with weak eyes to see information on the screen. As I have often mentioned in this blog, large keys are best for the elderly because pressing them are easier. Emporia's mobile phone for seniors also offer a louder than normal speaker for those who have impaired hearing.

Here are the other features of the Life Phone:

2.7 inch (6.8cm) mono-colour screen

Dualband

Five emergency numbers can be stored

Very loud

Very strong vibration mode

You can also watch this Life Phone video to get a better idea of this handset for seniors. Tune in to this blog for more cell phones for seniors and other services for oldies.

In August 2003 NASA selected the University of Arizona "Phoenix" mission for launch in 2007. It was the first in a new line of smaller, low-cost, Scout missions in the agency's exploration of Mars program. NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander was launched on 4 August 2007, the mission has two goals. One is to study the geologic history of water, the key to unlocking the story of past climate change. The second is to search for evidence of a habitable zone that may exist in the ice-soil boundary.

It will be a real nail-biter on May 25, 2008, for engineers, as the Phoenix spacecraft performs a series of challenging maneuvers right before it lands on Mars. Whats new this time is NASA is telecasting live coverage of the Phoenix Mars Lander via internet. So now you can watch the Phoenix attempts to make the first powered landing on the red planet since Viking 2 in 1976.

We have also made the video feed available at Askwiki.

Phoenix will be landing in the northern arctic region of the planet where an ice layer is known to exist below the surface soil. You can watch it online here aswell or in Second Life. If you insist on watching on TV, Discovery Science is carrying the landing, and CNN promises to have some, but not complete, coverage at 7pm ET.

This is my friends at Absa again. They really know how to innovate. The latest "first" is to have two bankers from Absa on every 1time flight. This means it is now possible to do your banking at 30 000 ft, without even having to log on our visit your branch. (Read more here).

It is possibly only with the fees that is charged by Absa (very high) and the fees charged by 1Time (very low) that this venture actually have a business case.

PS. I am a client of Absa (both in my personal capacity and as a business)

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Monitise to Africa. On face value, the recent announcement regarding a their collaboration with "Made in Africa" seems to be a great deal. As a listed company, it is important to announce this transaction as well as the commercial terms associated with the deal. (Read the press release on their website).

As an African myself, I was intrigued about many things related to the announcement. If I were an investor in this publicly traded company (which I am not), these are the questions that I would have had. In the interest of debate, I thought that I should publish the questions:

Who is "Made in Africa"? A quick search for Made in Africa on Google returns film-makers, cotton and aloe-distributors. I am sure these are not the Made in Africa that we are talking about. Maybe it is a company established with a specific aim and have not been around for a long time?

Who is the guys behind "Made in Africa" and what is their credentials? We all know and respect Ozwald Boateng, who is one of Africa's best-known clothes designers and living in London, but who is Chris Cleverly and Prince Hassan Kimbugwe (who is the other two backers of "Made in Africa"). Chris (according to his profile on LinkedIn) has been quite busy in Uganda, starting and selling bio-fuel companies... bio fuel companies?

From a technology perspective, how will Monitise deploy their secure Java-based solutions in Africa, when relatively small percentage of handsets support Java and few subscribers have data-contracts?

In most of the target countries very few people have bank-relationships. How will Monitise adapt their ATM-based (register-your-card-to-get-access-to-mobile-banking) solution paradigm?

I have worked in the countries mentioned in the press release and we have made very successful mobile banking deployments there. We have also experienced the challenges and understand the realities of these countries well. I welcome my UK friends to Africa and wish them well - it is going to be an interesting ride.

I track the visitors to my blog, thanks to Google Analytics. I can report that the blog is being visited, and (hopefully) read. With an average time of almost two minutes spent on the blog (yes, they can measure that), it does seem that some people find some of the entries interesting.

As part of the feedback that I get from Google Analytics, I get statistics on the blog-entries that are visited most. Although not a statistically big enough sample, I started keeping a record of my top five blogs. Those entries that have been visited the most during the past month. I thought that this may be an indication of what people are interested in. Well, here are the top five posts on my blog:

Source: John Mauldin, Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert, is also editor of the free Thoughts From the Frontline that goes to over 1 million readers each week. For more information on John or his FREE weekly economic letter go to: http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/learnmore

After attending the Summit in Cairo and with enough time to reflect, I would like to share the following insights on the Summit.

The importance of ensuring that mobile wallet solutions are deployed with the correct regulatory dispensation. This means that all players should take the emergence of this industry serious and contribute to ensure solid regulations. Banks and Regulators have major roles to play as it requires their involvement. Schema where they do not participate could lead to risks to the money eco-system (the potential side-effects can potentially be much more than the sub-prime were)

The lack of standards will prevail for very long. I do not believe that it would be possible to agree on (or develop) any standards in this industry for a long time. Those organisations that elect to wait for the standards to emerge, will wait for a long time. Rather they should select mainstream suppliers and deploy "similar" solutions to ensure that their solutions are sustainable.

The complexity of technology required to deliver solutions that are being talked about, should not be under-estimated. I am worried that some suppliers are presenting a simplified view on what is required to deliver these very complicated solutions. It was quite clear to me, when companies had made serious deployments: they were much more restrained.

In the end the customer will decide to what degree the solutions will be successful. This should not be underestimated. Factors like ease-of-use, perceived security and cost will have to be mixed in such a way that individuals love it. This is the primary challenge.

It is great to work in an industry where the opportunity exist to make a lot of money, yet, at the same time, be able to make a difference in the life's of the many poor people around.

I can't wait for the next Summit planned for Florida. If the excitement and activity of this Summit is anything to go by, the next Summit will be a "must-attend" affair.

Microsoft envisions your walls as computers. At the CEO Summit 2008 Bill Gates demonstrated the "TouchWall", a new hardware technology from Microsoft that creates a touch based white board interface that lets users interact more naturally with data and applications on their computer. However as per Microsoft the two products (Microsoft Surface and TouchWall) are completely different.

Surface is a multi-touch and vision system that uses cameras to sense what is on the table, where it is and what it is doing. Whereas TouchWall consists of three infrared lasers that scan a surface. A camera notes when something breaks through the laser line and feeds that information back to the Plex software. While Surface retails at around $10,000, for TouchWall is just "hundreds of dollars".

Just arrived during the early morning in Egypt, showered and had breakfast. As I walked into the conference hall of the Summit, I had such a positive experience. I have been working on this dream of mobile payments being available to all for so long. Sometimes, I almost got despondent, but this morning I knew: Mobile Payments have arrived. The level of interest and the seniority of the participants was an indication that this is now for real.The conference was different to many in the past that I attended in the following ways:a. Representatives were truly from everywhere. Previous conference had a very regional character. Either Asian, American or European. This time round it was from every continent. Interesting that it should be happening in Africa...b. The level of participants were of a very senior level: CEO's of major corporations, Ministers and senior officialsc. A general spirit of: "Let's build the industry" rather than criticise each other prevailed.

Google Inc. in an effort to make the web more social has introduced a new tool to enable people to interact with their friends. Using the tool website owners will be able to use the hosted application to allow interactions with visitors from social-networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut, by copying and pasting snippets of code into their site.

Google's initiative, called "Friend Connect," follows path of MySpace and Facebook last week to allow their users to transport their personal profiles and applications to other web sites. Friend Connect-compliant sites will be able to view, invite, and interact with newfound friends, or with existing friends, from established social-networking sites, including Facebook, Google Talk, Hi5, Orkut, and Plaxo via secure authorization application-programming interfaces.

Here is a video explaining Google's Friend Connect.

Friend Connect provides wizardlike pages. Webmasters just fill in the information, select social apps, copy code, paste, and save. No coding is required. It passes the 'easy' test, and it does something useful.

Google hopes its latest social tools will encourage people to spend even more time online, giving the company more opportunities to show the advertising that generates most of its profits.

I just found out that Denis quoted my blog in one of his blogs. I am honored.Denis, I would like to comment on your blogs too, but my French is only of an acceptable standard after at least half a bottle of good French Champagne. Unfortunately, my keyboard then is a bit blurred.

VRL Knowledgebank recently announced a new report: "the branch is back" (see more info here). The summary of the report reads as follows:"The global retail banking industry is now in a period of innovative commitment to the branch, arguably not seen since the early 1990s. This quiet revolution is dealing with a more broadly-based agenda than just branch design, and is focusing on creating more customerorientated experiences and greater retail banking profitability."If interested in the content, you can pay almost € 2000 to get access to the content.

From a mobile banking perspective, this is of course bad news, so I tried to get a bit more information on why a report could come to such a conclusion. I did not want to pay such a big price-tag just to find why these analysts see a different world that I do, so I used the information available for free. I could find no reference in the Contents page on how the evaluation was done to get to such a conclusion - now survey, no relative profitable measurements, nothing that could make one make such a statement.

I saw that the report refers to many case studies (predominantly in the UK and the US - not the markets where branchless banking is expected to be big), but did see reference to a case study in India (where, I presume "the branch is back"). The case study is for a bank called YES bank, which when you do a Google Search returns the following:

YouTube recently made its localized Indian version go live as http://in.youtube.com/, targeting the Indian audience with Indian video contents. In order to feed its contents it has partnered with several content creators like Zoom Channel, NDTV, Rajshri Group, IUTV, ndiaglitz and Music Today.

However to watch all these quality videos one has to be online and needs to have a good internet connection. Or an alternative could have been to allow users to download videos from YouTube. This much wanted feature as of now is not provided by YouTube. Although there are multiple tools available online to download YouTube videos on some of which i have written in the past, however Askwiki would like to share the most simple and quick tool to download YouTube videos, with a click you can have these videos on you computer.

Paste the YouTube URL of the video below and press "GetVideo" a "Download Link" would appear below, Just click that and download the "get_video" file which is nothing but the video file.

Once downloaded you need VLC player to play this video. VLC player is a must have video player tool which is very light and rich on its functions. It can be downloaded from here

South African tax year ends at the end of February and tax returns must be completed and filed by about July every year. This is a terrible time for me, because I have to go through all the forms and filing to ultimately submit this declaration. Sure it is a challenge for me as I do not like filling in the forms and collecting all the information, but I get it done every year, now for almost thirty years. I also draw on the expertise of my accountant who has been doing this for a long time and actually enjoys doing it.

When talking about regulatory challenges for mobile banking, I was trying to get this clear in my mind, what we mean by challenges:a. Is it impossible to do, or we don't know how to do it and therefor a major barrier to deploying mobile bankingb. It is possible to do but maybe complex. We can do it but we have to fill in a number of forms and conclude agreements. We can work with experts that have done this before and know exactly what must be done.

Gartner produced research indicating that mobile payment subscribers will increase from 33 million to 104 million subscribers in the next three years. This is quite conservative compared to some of the other recent results (see my blogs on this here and here) that were produced by other research companies. Especially their estimate of (only) 500 thousand mobile payment subscribers in Europe at the moment. I think companies like paybox in Austria would be surprised that they have more subscribers in Austria than those that Gartner counted in Europe... wait a minute, last I checked Austria was in Europe. Also the fact that they did not count African subscribers - does that mean that they do not know about the massive penetration of mobile payment subscribers in Africa (my estimate between 7 and 12 million), or that Africa does not exist?

I still remember a previous estimate that Gartner got terribly wrong: the "75% probability that 60% of companies were not ready for Y2K" predication. After all the angst that they produced during 1999, maybe policy now is that they should play everything down?

I should have blogged on this before, as this is a hot topic. Many examples of schema that utilise airtime as an alternative to real currency can be found. These solutions either provide for person to person payments and also for remittance solutions in a number of cases. The question now arises if this is not the way to go.

My take on this, is an emphatic NO! This is for one just not sustainable (see some of my comments below), but also potentially extremely hazardous to the underwriter of this currency (the mobile operator). If this approach really takes off and more and more currency needs to be produced to support the demand (money supply), serious problems like inflation, run-on-the-bank etc. could materialise. Mobile Operators are not in a position to deal with this. If they fully assess the potential implication on a devaluation of their airtime stock, I believe that they would put measures in place to stop it immediately (like elapse dates on pre-paid airtime). They should be apprehensive to ever start treating their airtime like money in the hands of consumers.

In addition, I think that using airtime for money in any format is totally unsustainable, because I believe that using airtime as money would be:

Very expensive

Totally inefficient as compared to proper e-money solutions

Does not provide security to the client

Would be illegal in any properly regulated environment

If airtime is being used as currency, it should be seen as an absolute indication of banks failing toprovide in an obvious need.

I have been critical of many things on my blog. I have highlighted the problems with premium SMS's, Internet payments, Chip and Pin and many other approaches to solving payment problems. In the same way I have discussed problems that I see with NFC solutions (As far as I can re-collect twice: here and here)

I don't think that we can ignore the growing interest in NFC payments and when today I was asked twice why I don't support NFC payments, I realised that I should post a firm position on this blog.

Card-based proximity payments is nothing new. We have stirling examples of these having been deployed successfully. I am the proud owner of a Oyster Card myself (even though I don't live in London). I really enjoy seeing how seamless everything work, each time I have to use the underground.

So here is my position: To merely replicate these kind of payments by replacing the card with a mobile phone does not add much value, and I believe that most business cases will be rickety. If we were to utilise the new NFC capabilities in phones, I think it is critical to be much more innovative about these features. Some of the things that we should possibly develop (not an exhaustive list) is:

On phone wallet applications

Phone to phone NFC interaction (I personally think that this is one potential killer app)

OTA issuing (another killer, but extremely complex and challenging)

Mobile data interactions between the application on the phone and back-office

At the end of the month, I will be speaking at a high-level NFC conference. I was invited...